Great Power Rivalries, Domestic Politics and Southeast Asian Foreign Policy: Exploring the Linkages

Southeast Asian states increasingly face a strategic environment characterized by rising Sino-American tensions at the same time that domestic factors are increasingly influencing foreign policy. In recent decades, Southeast Asian states have sought to maintain their strategic autonomy by adopting hedging strategies to secure economic and security benefits from different partners. Since hedging is a rational response to strategic uncertainty, one would predict that as China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea has made clear its intentions to revise the status quo in ways that directly threaten the national interests of the Philippines Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, that they would begin to balance against China, in part by improving ties with Washington. In contrast to these predictions, no Southeast Asian country is balancing against China today, partly because of the economic incentives offered by China and partly because of the disincentives created by US pressure on democracy and human rights. In the Philippines, Duterte’s strategic re-orientation away from the United States toward China was triggered partly by US condemnation of his bloody war on drugs while US criticism of Thailand’s military coup has weakened the alliance. The unprecedented role of public pressure, interest groups and legislatures is forcing Southeast Asian leaders to publically debate policy decisions long made in private. Public opinion in Southeast Asia has often been anti-American but anti-Chinese sentiment is rising. As domestic and foreign policy becomes increasingly intertwined, Southeast Asian foreign policy is likely to continue to deviate from structurally based alignment predictions and become more erratic.